


All Else Fails

by Kristylee



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-16
Updated: 2018-03-16
Packaged: 2019-04-01 02:35:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13988664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kristylee/pseuds/Kristylee
Summary: For @Deeker on twitter





	All Else Fails

Dean Winchester is not a sentimental son of a bitch. He doesn't hold on to tangible items that make up memories. He doesn't really remember anniversaries or things like that. Nothing good warrants the head space. 

He remembers Hell. The copper blood taste of being on that rack, and then the old penny smell of sinned blood as he tortured anybody Alistair told him to. He remembers Purgatory and how every minute was a struggle for his own life. How Cas wouldn't answer a single damn prayer. The bad doesn't warrant the head space either, but it's harder to forget.

He's gone over it and over it. It happened so fast. The angel blade, Cas. The grace leaving his body, the charred wings on the ground. It was pain unlike anything Dean had ever felt. A surging rip in his heart that left him concussed, hands cold. His entire body more than numb with shock. He shook as if tased. The night, that night, didn't seem to end. 

Despite Satan’s baby and the crackling rip in their world, Dean felt nothing but a fierce and total loss as if a limb had suddenly been amputated in his sleep and he woke to find a bleeding stump. Nothing really mattered. Nothing still matters. Sam is babysitting and the rip still crackles. Life, somehow, moves on.

He's expected to man up. And he does. He puts on his cocky game face and hunts and keeps his head down. Teases Sam about any and everything. Life moves on. Dean doesn't. 

Each night, there is an ache, bone deep that reminds him of his loss. Losing Cas was the hardest thing Dean has ever encountered. And the hard stuff isby easy to forget.

Just like in Purgatory - and just as effectively - Dean prays. He prays, voice hoarse and raw from too much to drink.

“Cas. Castiel, please get your feathered ass back to me.”

Usually, Dean falls asleep with Castiel’s name on his lips. Like so many nights before, when things were good. After Dean prays with no answer, he remembers the good. Wishes he can have it, always.

The good with Cas outweighed their bad and the bickering. The good, soft and sepia toned in Dean’s mind, plays like a movie. The slow shifts into each other's space in the morning, skin warm and bare. The shared coffee. The songs in the car. The first time they kissed. On that cliff after taking out a wendigo. 

Dean Winchester is not a sentimental son of a bitch. And when praying doesn't work, when nothing else works, he sits up on that cliff and he looks up at the stars. He doesn't pray. 

Dean wishes.

He would mock Sam endlessly for something like this. He's not a child. Grown men aren't vegetarians and they don't make wishes. It's an unspoken law. But everything is broken.

He steps to the edge of the cliff, doesn't matter that some rocks give away and he almost tumbles down the side. He faces the void of the night and all the stars and wishes with all his might that something will change.

“I wish Castiel, angel of the Lord, came back to Earth. I wish he has on that damn trench coat and that he says-”

“Hello, Dean.”


End file.
